Apertures – Responsive Architectural Environments
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Apertures – Responsive Architectural Environments Herwig Baumgartner, AIA Professor, Southern California Institute of Architecture Principal and Partner, Baumgartner+Uriu Scott Uriu, AIA Professor, University of Southern California Principal and Partner, Baumgartner+Uriu INTRODUCTION Within the discipline of architecture, the discussion of fields, networks, and smooth transitions has dominated the discourse over the past 15 years. Rooted in the phil- osophical models of Gilles Deleuze,1 systems theory, and parametricism,2 this discussion has influenced many generations of architects. Parametricism promotes a relational ontology in which entities have no autonomous reality and are based on “continuous differentiation”; thus, everything is connected, and everything flows. This position of an architecture rooted in dynamism and deterritorialization is currently being challenged by a radically different approach, giving way to a contem- porary design practice working with discrete figures that cannot be entirely understood through their pristine dig- ital relations. This position is one that is obsessed with capturing qualities that would appear to be incongruous by incorporating analog features into a digital design pro- terms of their morphology and performance. They cess. The installation Apertures, designed for the SCI Arc are disruptive features to the overall building mass, Le Corbusier’s Villa Gallery, is firmly positioned within this approach. but they are able to interact with their environment, Savoye in, France Apertures are the architectural catalysts for the producing a symbiotic relationship between nature, installation design, being defined as objects within building morphologies, and material expression. Aper- a larger building object that differ from their host in tures have been an ongoing topic in our work. We are 112 2014 TxA EMERGING DESIGN + TECHNOLOGY 113 interested in challenging the notion of an architectural order to do housing, you must formulate a new approach opening as a static object by redefining the DNA of a on how to do windows. window, both in terms of its appearance and material- Daniel Libeskind’s ity, as well as its nature as an object in continuous flux, WHAT IS THE DNA OF AN APERTURE? Jewish Museum in responding to its environment through movement or Apertures – view of Berlin, Germany sound. Unique to this project is the proposal of the 1. The aperture frame smaller apertures building as an organism, challenging how architecture • A window frame that is constantly in flux can interface with its users and its environment. The boundary between the human body and architectural 2. Apertures as autonomous objects object dissolves into an immersive, interactive envi- • They are designed independently from the ronment. The project utilizes digital design and fabri- building massing and exterior surface. cation techniques together with synthetic materials • They are three-dimensional objects that are and composite construction. The final architectural inserted into the building mass and can be or- object is augmented through the integration of sen- ganized freely and independently of floor slabs. sors and a responsive algorithm to produce a sym- • They are transitional objects between inside biotic relationship between the user and the object, and outside that can be occupiable. mediated through sound. • They are directional and focused on surround- Aperture design for a ing features or follow an external logic. housing tower in Lima, HISTORY Peru On a very basic level, windows make the facade. They 3. Mega-apertures: Multidirectional aggregates determine what the house looks and feels like, while from • Mega apertures form the building mass the inside, they frame the view and bring air and light into by aggregating a family of self-similar ob- the building. Based on their exterior appearance, we can jects—“flutes”—into a larger whole. differentiate them into the categories of punched hole 4. Responsive environments windows, glass curtain walls and apertures that are ob- • Apertures are responsive to the environment jects protruding from the facade, etc. However, beyond through either motion or sound. that, windows can also elucidate an architectural idea. They can have a symbolic meaning that has nothing to 1. The aperture frame do with their performance as windows. For example, Jeff Apertures are features of the facade, just as the eyes, Kipnis3 speaks about the windows of the Jewish muse- mouth, and nose are features of the face. We are accus- um by Daniel Libeskind as being about a tragedy that tomed to seeing certain shapes and forms of window occurred in human history and how this was translated frames that we are familiar with and which communi- into architectural terms. “These windows are not about cate to us a certain imbedded logic (performative, his- light, are not about air, and they are not about views as toric, symbolic, etc). Changing the shape of the window we would normally associate it. They make the thing look, frame, even if ever so slightly, is easily conceived of as Frank Gehry’s Der let’s say, tortured, fragmented, broken.” In Corbusier’s uncanny or strange. There are two art pieces that have Neue Zollhof in Dues- manifesto “Five Points of Architecture,”4 which were most had great influence on our work on this topic: Bruce seldorf, Germany evident in his Villa Savoye, he claims the ribbon window Nauman’s Making Faces from 1968 and Tim Hawkin- as one of the key features of modern architecture—“the son’s Emoter from 2002. facade can be cut along its entire length to allow all rooms Nauman’s work deals with the deformation of fa- to be lit equally.” The ribbon window also does something cial features, which in themselves can be familiar de- else; it frames the horizon and denies you from seeing pending on the degree of distortion, while Hawkinson the sky and the ground as you otherwise would through deals with the dispositioning of parts of facial features a floor to ceiling window, turning life into a filmstrip. Our through a mechanical apparatus that reconfigures the approach poses a counterpoint to these two. mouth, eyes, and nose. Although the works of Hawkin- We were looking into building upon these two ideas, son and Nauman are related to one another, the results but simultaneously transforming them in a new ap- are dramatically different and show a clear shift from proach that deals with the aperture as a “foreign” object the familiar deforming (Nauman) to the uncanny dis- Enrique Miralles’ inserted into the surface causing the surface to rupture positioning (Hawkinson). Scottish Parliament and deform. Our interest in apertures developed while Based on that logic, we started developing a window in Scotland, United Kingdom working on a housing tower in Lima, Peru. For us the frame that is in flux and can change its shape over time, typology of the housing tower was less defined by the rather than having a static frame with a specific form. To aggregation and organization of units, but actually more be clear, this was not a performance-driven design, like defined by fenestration—the window. As the default the apertures of the Institute Du Monde Arabe in Paris morphology, the windows in housing projects tended to by Jean Nouvel. Instead, we are interested in the thresh- be ubiquitous ribbon windows. We are convinced that in old between the familiar and the uncanny that can be 114 2014 TxA EMERGING DESIGN + TECHNOLOGY 115 produced simply by changing the window frame and skylights and as sculptural objects on the roof; the of- 3. Multidirectional aggregates introducing motion or sound as a responsive system. fice development Der Neue Zollhof by Frank Gehry de- Apertures is designed using a technique of aggregating For the housing tower, the window frame was de- ploys rectangular window boxes that are inserted into a a family of discrete and self similar objects—“flutes”— Daniel Libeskind’s signed with linear extensions along the window frames curvilinear facade; and the Scottish parliament by En- into a larger whole. Rather than using a Boolean oper- Jewish Museum in Berlin, Germany that create a soft, blurred building edge on the exterior rique Miralles, which seems like a thesis on apertures as ation where objects are trimmed against one another that is constantly in flux. As a material for these compo- autonomous objects, playfully deploys apertures with and merge into a single whole, we instead extended nents, we propose using advanced silicon composites different articulation and materiality to give the project objects past one another and then trimmed them us- that combine material properties on a molecular level its unique character. Greg Lynn describes three contem- ing a set of trimming objects that were later removed. and allow for the engineering of each component to porary techniques for placing apertures into complex, This technique allowed each part to maintain its au- achieve varying flexibility without the use of mechan- curved surfaces: “Boolean cuts using multiple figures tonomy rather than merging into a single whole where ical parts. In addition, the new window frames will be or surfaces, spline offsets using the curved isoparms of the parts are no longer readable. On the interior, these coated with thin solar film that will generate electricity curve networks that define the surface for openings, and trimmed surface edges produce an ordering system for the building. facets that fold apertures into surfaces.” 5 of structural ridges that highlights the seams between There is a certain liberty implied by disengaging the objects while simultaneously connecting the different 2. Apertures as autonomous objects aperture from its host, the building. Apertures begin to apertures and converging into a single interior space Traditionally, apertures are framed openings that sit act as a spatial device rather than just a cut in the sur- with multiple vantage points. The outside does the op- Apertures – interior flat within the building enclosure as a punched-hole face or a change of material.